CHAPTER LV.

DAHOME.

CHARACTERISTIC OF THE WESTERN AFRICAN-LOCALITY OF DAHOME-THE FIVE DISTRICTS-DAHOMAN ARCHITECTURE-"6 SWISH HOUSES-THE VULTURE AND HIS FOOD-THE LEGBA-SNAKE WORSHIP

IN

DAHOME-PUNISHMENT OF A SNAKE-KILLER-ETIQUETTE AT COURT-JOURNEY OF A MAN OF RANK TO THE CAPITAL-AFRICAN HAMMOCK-SIGNIFICATION OF THE WORD DAHOME-CERE

MONIES ON THE JOURNEY-KANA, OR CANANINA, THE "COUNTRY CAPITAL "-BEAUTY OF THE SCENERY-THE OYOS AND GOZO'S CUSTOM-APPROACH TO KANA-A GHASTLY ORNAMENT "THE BELL COMES "THE AMAZONS-THEIR FEROCITY AND COURAGE THEIR WAR TROPHIES

AND WEAPONS-REVIEW OF THE AMAZONS-ORGANIZATION OF THE FORCES.

THERE is a very remarkable point about the true negro of Western Africa, namely, the use which he has made of his contact with civilization. It might be imagined that he would have raised himself in the social scale by his frequent intercourse with men wiser and more powerful than himself, and who, if perhaps they may not have been much better in a moral point of view, could not possibly have been worse. But he has done nothing of the kind, and, instead of giving up his old barbarous customs, has only increased their barbarity by the additional means which he has obtained from the white man.

Exchanging the bow and arrows for the gun, and the club for the sword, he has employed his better weapons in increasing his destructive powers, and has chiefly used them in fighting and selling into slavery those whom he had previously fought, and who respected him as long as the arms on both sides were equal. And the strangest thing is that, even considering his captives as so much property, the only excuse which could be found for the savage cruelty with which he makes raids on every town which he thinks he can conquer, he has not yet learned to abolish the dreadful "custom" of human sacrifices, although each prisoner or criminal killed is a dead loss to him.

We now come to one of the strangest kingdoms on the face of the earth, that of Dahome; a kingdom begun in blood and cruelty, and having maintained its existence of more than two centuries in spite of the terrible scenes continually enacted-scenes which would drive almost any other nation to revolt. But the fearful sacrifices for which the name of Dahome has been so long infamous are not merely the offspring of a despotic king's fancy; they are sanctioned, and even forced upon him, by his people-fit subjects of such a king.

It is situated in that part of Africa commonly known as the Slave Coast, as distinguished from the Gold, Ivory, and Grain Coasts, and its shores are washed by the waters of the Bight of Benin. Dahome alone, of the four great slave kingdoms, Ashanti, Yomba, Benin, and Dahome, has retained its power, and, to the eye of an experienced observer, even Dahome, which has outlived the three, will speedily follow them.

On its coasts are the two celebrated ports, Lagos and Whydah, which have for so long been the outlets by which the slaves captured in the interior were sent on board the ships.

Lagos, however, has been already ceded to England, and, under a better management, will probably become one of the great ports at which a legitimate trade can be carried on, and which will become one of the blessings instead of the curses of Western Africa.

Whydah, being one of the towns through which a traveller is sure to pass in going into the interior of Dahome, is worth a passing notice.

In the first place, Captain Burton, from whom the greater part of our knowledge of this strange land is derived, states that the very name is a misnomer. In the first place we have attributed it to the wrong spot, and in the next we have given it a most corruptel title. The place which we call Whydah is known to the people as Gre-hwe (Plantation House), while the real Hwe-dah-as the word ought to be spelt-belongs rightly to a little kingdom whose capital was Savi.

Originally a port belonging to the king of Savi, and given up entirely to piracy, it passed into the hands of Agaja, king of Dahome, who easily found an excuse for attacking a place which was so valuable as giving him a direct communication from the interior to the sea, without the intervention of middle-men, who each take a heavy per-centage from all goods that pass through their district. From 1725, when it thus passed into Dahoman hands, it rapidly increased in size and importance. Now it presents an extraordinary mixture of native and imported masters, and we will endeavour to cast a rapid glance at the former.

The place is divided into five districts, each governed by its own Caboceer; and it is a notable fact, that nowadays a Caboceer need not be a native. The post of Caboceer of the Soglaji, or English quarter, was offered to Captain Burton, who, however, conld not be tempted to accept it, even by the umbrella of rank-equal to the blue ribbon of our own system.

At the entrance of every town there is the De-sum, or Custom-house, and close by it are a number of little fetish houses, wherein the trader is supposed to return his thanks to the propitiating demons. The streets are formed by the walls of enclosures and the backs of houses; and, as Dahoman architecture is regulated by law, a very uniform effect is obtained. The walls are mud, popularly called "swish," sometimes mixed with oystershells to strengthen it, and built up in regular courses, each about two feet and a half in thickness. By law, no walls are allowed to be more than four courses high.

The hot sun soon bakes the mud into the consistence of soft brick; and, were it not for the fierce rains of the tropics, it would be very lasting. As it is, the rainy season is very destructive to walls, and the early part of the dry season is always a busy time with native architects, who are engaged in repairing the damages caused by the rains. There is a small amount of salt in the mud, which increases the liability to damage. On the Gold Coast the natives ingeniously strengthen the swish walls by growing cactus plants; but the negroes of Dahome neglect this precaution, and consequently give themselves-as lazy people proverbially do-a vast amount of needless trouble.

There are no windows to the houses; but the roofs, made of grass and leaves fastened on a light framework, are made so that they can be partially raised from the walls, like the "fly" of a tent.

In spite of the presence of localized Christian missions, and the continual contact of Islamism, the system of fetishism is rampant in Whydah. No human sacrifices take place there, all the victims being forwarded to the capital for execution. But, according to Captain Burton, " even in the bazaar many a hut will be girt round with the Zo Vodun, a country rope with dead leaves dangling from it at spaces of twenty feet. (Zo Vodun signifies fire-fetish.)

"After a conflagration, this fetish fire-prophylactic becomes almost universal. Opposite the house-gates, again, we find the Vo-siva defending the inmates from harm. It is of many shapes, especially a stick or a pole, with an empty old calabash for a head, and a body composed of grass, thatch, palm-leaves, fowls' feathers, and achatina shells. These people must deem lightly of an influence that can mistake, even in the dark, such a scarecrow for a human being.

"Near almost every door stands the Legba-gbau, or Legba-pot, by Europeans commonly called the Devil's dish.' It is a common clay shard article, either whole or broken, and

every morning and evening it is filled, generally by women, with cooked maize and palmoil, for the benefit of the turkey-buzzard. Akrasu,' the vulture, is, next to the snake, the happiest animal in Dahome. He has always abundance of food, like storks, robins, swallows, crows, adjutant-cranes, and other holy birds in different parts of the world..

"Travellers abuse this obscene fowl,' forgetting that without it the towns of Yoruba would be uninhabitable.... The turkey-buzzard perched on the topmost stick of a blasted calabash-tree is to the unromantic natives of Africa what the pea-fowl is to more engaging Asians. It always struck me as the most appropriate emblem and heraldic bearing for decayed Dahome."

The Legba, or idol to whom the fowl is sacred, is an abominable image, rudely moulded out of clay, and represented in a squatting attitude. Sometimes Legba's head is of wood,

with eyes and teeth made of cowries, or else painted white. Legba is mostly a male deity, rarely a female, and the chief object of the idol-maker seems to be that the worshipper shall have no doubt on the subject. Legba sits in a little hut open at the sides; and as no one takes care of him, and no one dares to meddle with him, the country is full of these queer little temples, inside which the god is sometimes seen in tolerable preservation, but in most cases has sunk into a mere heap of mud and dust. Some of these wooden Legbas are seen on page 615, but they are purposely selected on account of the exceptional delicacy displayed by the carver.

Snakes are fetish throughout Dahome, and are protected by the severest laws. All serpents are highly venerated, but there is one in particular, a harmless snake called the "Danhgbwe," which is held in the most absurd reverence. It is of moderate size, reaching

some five or six feet in length, and is rather delicately coloured with brown, yellow, an white. The Danhgbwe is kept tame in fetish houses, and if one of them should stray, it is carefully restored by the man who finds it, and who grovels on the ground and covers himself with dust before he touches it, as he would in the presence of a king. Formerly the penalty for killing one of these snakes was death, but it is now commuted for a punishment which, although very severe, is not necessarily fatal to the sufferer. partakes of the mixture of the horrible and the grotesque which is so characteristic of this land. Mr. Duncan saw three men undergo this punishment. Three small houses were built of dry sticks, and thatched with dry grass. The culprits were then placed in front of the houses by the fetish-man, who made a long speech to the spectators, and explained the enormity of the offence of which they had been guilty.

They then proceeded to tie on the shoulders of each culprit a dog, a kid, and two fowls. A quantity of palm-oil was poured over them, and on their heads were balanced baskets, containing little open calabashes filled with the same material, so that at the least movement the calabashes were upset, and the oil ran all over the head and body. They were next marched round the little houses, and, lastly, forced to crawl into them, the dog, kid, and fowls being taken off their shoulders and thrust into the house with them. The doors being shut, a large mob assembles with sticks and clods, and surrounds the house. The houses are then fired, the dry material blazing up like gunpowder, and the wretched inmates burst their way through the flaming walls and roof. and rush to the nearest running stream, followed by the crowd, who beat and pelt them unmercifully. If they can reach the water, they are safe, and should they be men of any consequence they have little to fear, as their friends surround them, and keep off the

crowd until the water is reached.

The whole of the proceedings are shown in the illustration on the preceding page. In the distance is seen one of the culprits being taken to his fetish house, the basket of calabashes on his head, and the animals slung round his neck. Another is seen creeping into the house, near which the fetish man is standing, holding dead snakes in his hands, and horrible to look at by reason of the paint with which he has covered his face. In the foreground is another criminal rushing towards the water, just about to plunge into it and extinguish the flames that are still playing about his oil-saturated hair and have nearly burned off all his scanty clothing. The blazing hut is seen behind him, and around are the spectators, pelting and striking him, while his personal friends are checking them, and keeping the way clear towards the water.

We will now leave Whydah, and proceed towards the capital.

When a person of rank wishes to pay his respects to the king, the latter sends some of his officers, bearing, as an emblem of their rank, the shark-stick, i.e. a kind of tomahawk about two feet long, carved at the end into a rude semblance of the shark, another image of the same fish being made out of a silver dollar beaten flat and nailed to the end of the handle. One of the officers will probably have the lion-stick as his emblem of the trust reposed in him; but to unpractised eyes the lions carved on the stick would answer equally well for the shark, and both would do well as "crocodile" sticks, the shapes of the animals being purely conventional.

The mode of travelling is generally in hammocks, made of cotton cloth, but sometimes formed of silk: these latter are very gaudy affairs. The average size of a hammock is nine feet by five, and the ends are lashed to a pole some nine or ten feet in length. Upon the pole is fixed a slight framework, which supports an awning as a defence against the sun. The pole is carried not on the shoulders but the heads of the bearers, and, owing to their awkwardness and rough movements, an inexperienced traveller gets his head knocked against the pole with considerable violence. Two men carry it, but each hammock requires a set of seven men, some to act as relays, and others to help in getting the vehicle over a rough part of the road. Each man expects a glass of rum morning and evening, and, as he is able to make an unpopular master very uncomfortable, it is better to yield to the general custom, especially as rum is only threepence per pint.

Being now fairly in the midst of Dahome, let us see what is the meaning of the

name.

Somewhere about A.D. 1620, an old king died and left three sons. The oldest took his father's kingdom, and the youngest, Dako by name (some writers call him Tacudona), went abroad to seek his fortune, and settled at a place not far from Agbome. By degrees. Dako became more and more powerful, and was continually encroaching upon the country belonging to a neighbouring king called Danh, i.e. the Snake, or Rainbow. As the number of his followers increased, Dako pestered Danh for more and more land for them, until at last the king lost patience, and said to the pertinacious mendicant, "Soon thou wilt build in my belly." Dako thought that this idea was not a bad one, and when he had collected sufficient warriors, he attacked Danh, killed him, took possession of his kingdom, and built a new palace over his corpse, thus literally and deliberately fulfilling the prediction made in haste and anger by his conquered foe. In honour of his victory, the conqueror called the place Danh-ome, or Danh's-belly. The "n" in this word is a nasal sound unknown to English ears, and the word is best pronounced Dah-ome, as a dissyllable.

The great neighbouring kingdom of Allada was friendly with Dahome for nearly a hundred years, when they fell out, fought, and Dahome again proved victorious, so that Allada allowed itself to be incorporated with Dahome.

It was a little beyond Allada where Captain Burton first saw some of the celebrated Amazons, or female soldiers, who will be presently described, and here began the strange series of ceremonies, far too numerous to be separately described, which accompanied the progress of so important a visitor to the capital.

A mere slight outline will be given of them. At every village that was passed a dance was performed, which the travellers were expected to witness. All the dances being exactly alike, and consisting of writhings of the body and stamping with the feet, they soon became very monotonous, but had to be endured. At a place called Aquine a body of warriors rushed tumultuously into the cleared space of the village under its centre tree. They were about eighty in number, and were formed four deep. Headed by a sort of flag, and accompanied by the inevitable drum, they came on at full speed, singing at the top of their voices, and performing various agile antics. After circling round the tree, they all fell flat on the ground, beat up the dust with their hands, and flung it over their bodies. This is the royal salute of Western Africa, and was performed in honour of the king's canes of office, which he had sent by their bearers, accompanied by the great ornament of his court, an old liqueur case, covered with a white cloth, and borne on a boy's head.

From this case were produced bottles of water, wine, gin, and rum, of each of which the visitors were expected to drink three times, according to etiquette. After this ceremony had been completed, the escort, as these men proved to be, preceded the party to the capital, dancing and capering the whole way.

"It

After several halts, the party arrived within sight of Kana, the country capital. is distinctly Dahome, and here the traveller expects to look upon the scenes of barbaric splendour of which all the world has read. And it has its own beauty; a French traveller has compared it with the loveliest villages of fair Provence, while to Mr. Duncan it suggested a vast pleasure-ground, not unlike some parts of the Great Park at Windsor.'

"After impervious but sombre forest, grass-barrens, and the dismal swamps of the path, the eye revels in these open plateaux; their seducing aspect is enhanced by scattered plantations of a leek-green studding the slopes, by a background of gigantic forest dwarfing the nearer palm-files, by homesteads buried in cultivation, and by calabashes. and cotton-trees vast as the view, tempering the fiery summer to their subject growths, and in winter collecting the rains, which would otherwise bare the newly-buried seed. Nor is animal life wanting. The turkey-buzzard, the kite, and the kestrel soar in the upper heights; the brightest fly-catchers flit through the lower strata; the little grey squirrel nimbly climbs his lofty home; and a fine large spur-fowl rises from the plantations of maize and cassava."

As is usual with African names, the word Kana has been spelled in a different way by almost every traveller and every writer on the subject. Some call it Canna, or